SEOUL, South Korea — In a small room, Rebecca Kimmel found herself overwhelmed with emotion as she stared at a baby photo she discovered in her adoption file. The black-and-white image appeared to be taken at an orphanage in Gwangju, the city where Kimmel had always been told she was abandoned as an infant. Yet, upon closer inspection, she felt a deep sense of unease. The features did not match hers, raising questions about her true identity. The shocking realization hit her: the narratives she accepted about her origins were false. She howled in anguish, grappling with a profound existential crisis, wondering who she truly was and where she came from.
Kimmel is one of many South Korean adoptees driven by an intense yearning to discover their identities — a pursuit that many might take for granted. Unfortunately, like many others, she discovered a troubling reality of photo swaps, fabricated stories, and deceptive documents crafted to obscure their true identities. The narratives are fueled by a cooperative effort between the South Korean government, adoption agencies, and foreign nations, which facilitated the adoption of around 200,000 children amid allegations of rampant fraud.
For years, South Korea worked to remove children from the care of unwed mothers and from impoverished families, often ignoring misleading practices in adoption. Meanwhile, Western countries were eager to adopt children, as domestic availability had dwindled due to access to birth control and abortion. While many adoptions lead to rich, fulfilling lives, the complex desires of both parties have resulted in the unnecessary uprooting of countless children from their families based on false pretenses.
Kimmel, an artist, estimates her age at around 49 but lacks concrete knowledge about her birthdate — yet another piece of her identity puzzle. An all-consuming desire to uncover her roots consumes her, a quest that diverged from her earlier years marked by “the fog” — a phase filled with blissful ignorance about her adoption. Her parents shared the narrative that included being abandoned in Gwangju and sent to an orphanage by the police. The slip of paper attached to her clothing indicated her supposed birth date as August 4, 1975. But there were no details about her biological parents, only the uncertain names written on official documents.
After being adopted by a family in the United States, Kimmel and her family celebrated what they termed her “Arrival Day” each year on January 21. Still, she sensed inconsistencies in her identity, particularly when family photographs from her early life in South Korea did not resemble her appearance as a child in Maryland. When she inquired, her parents reassured her that babies change over time.
The first trip her family made to South Korea in 1986 took them to an orphanage they were advised to visit instead — one that held no records of Kimmel. For years, she found joy in a quintessential suburban American upbringing, attending college and teaching art classes. Yet beneath the surface, a growing loneliness and an overwhelming sense of emptiness emerged as she contemplated her identity beyond her adopted life.
In 2017, everything shifted for Kimmel when she began to explore her adoption by attending a large gathering of Korean adoptees in San Francisco. The experience ignited a deep urgency to uncover the truth before it was too late to connect with her origins. Many South Korean adoptees, just like Kimmel, are on a similar journey of discovery, yet only a fraction succeed in locating their biological families due to vague or falsified documents.
By 2018, Kimmel made the pilgrimage to South Korea, filled with hope. Although the clinic where she believed she was abandoned was closed, a former doctor told her of an orphan who had been discovered in front of it. This sparked initial excitement, but false leads followed. When she visited her adoption agency, KSS, she found her requests for her records met with resistance, leading to a confrontational exchange with social workers who insisted the information was theirs, not hers.
Eventually, enough pressure allowed her to access her file, only to uncover yet another unsettling fact: a photo taken at a different angle confirmed that the girl in her documents was not her. As she plunged deeper into her search, she connected with numerous forums and fellow adoptees sharing their experiences and stories. The mystery of her identity continued to unfold, revealing that she could have been a child swapped due to the agency’s sad history of identity mix-ups during the frenzied adoptions of the 1970s and 80s.
Kimmel made a return visit to KSS in 2019, this time gaining permission to search their files herself. There, she found what she believed to be her true file, complete with photographs of another girl. However, the discrepancies in the information filled her with confusion as the official records detailed a child with severe health issues, contradicting newly obtained medical notes showing she was healthy. A comparison with an expert yielded more distressing results, revealing that the girls were likely different individuals.
Kimmel’s investigation continued as she connected with Park Jong-kyun, a man seeking his twin daughters relinquished for adoption more than four decades prior. After treacherous twists of fate, the twins, who were adopted into an American family, were eventually located. As they navigated the identity connected with their adoption stories, they were startled to realize the intertwining of their lives with Park’s decades-long search for them.
In 2021, the twins reconnected with Park in South Korea, triggering a whirlwind of emotions for all involved. While they embraced their father and participated in family events, the older man expressed joy at finding his daughters, grappling with feelings of sadness for all the lost time.
Currently, as Kimmel helps others in their journeys, she still faces constraints in knowing the truth about herself. Time weighs heavily as she recognizes that she still has not unearthed the precise details of her own identity or her birth story. The longing for connection remains palpable.
Kimmel reflects on the complexities of her journey, caught between the satisfaction of having forged a new, fulfilling life and the awareness that, like many adoptees, her story is still shrouded in mystery. Despite her attempts to connect the dots, she contemplates the reality of never truly knowing who she is or her roots.
